THE STORY:

West Seattle, WA born and raised- Jay got exposure to the gearhead lifestyle early on in life from family members who had racing in their blood. A grandfather that raced circle track cars in the early 1940’s, then later rode and raced Harley- Davidson and Indian motorcycles in the “Widowmaker” hillclimbs of Ohio was one of Jays early influences.

Jays father rebuilt a few cars from the ground up when he was young man. Even though the cars Jay’s dad rebuilt ran just fine, he always had spare parts left over (an inside family joke) and ended up turning all the serious car work over to Jay’s uncle. Jay’s uncle- an avid car builder, street racer and talented welder who could get the maximum horsepower out of any gas engine. While serving in the Viet-Nam War Jay’s uncle built a rail dragster out of spare military vehicle parts and would race the dragster up and down the airstrips in Viet- Nam.

Being raised around a variety of cars and motorcycles, Jay gained an appreciation for speed at an early age. Riding his first motorcycle came at age 7 on his cousins Yamaha TY80. Growing up Jay learned the basics of mechanics while working on his motorcycles and took a liking to classes in school like art, metalshop, autoshop and creative writing. Jay’s first car was given to him on his 15th birthday- a $600 basket case ’69 Camaro. It took a year and a half putting in countless hours with a hammer and dolly learning how to do bodywork, wrenching, rebuilding and restoring on his own with some help from his dad, his uncle and a friend named Eric Carper. All this before Jay even had the opportunity to get a girl in the back seat.

Acting and movies: After a bandful of blue collar knucklebusting/ back breaking jobs, a 2 year College Degree with an emphasis on Business and Marketing, numerous musclecar builds and somewhere in the mix with snowboarding, surfing and motocross Jay began acting in 1991. Jay moved to L.A. in 1999. Jay’s stay in L.A. was brief, but it gave him a whole new outlook on things. He chose to return to Seattle so he could be a part of his soon to be born nephew’s life. From that point on Jay decided there had to be a way to be close to his family AND have a substantial film acting career. He decided to form RENEGADE PRODUCTIONS with the intention of creating a n opportunity in the movie business for himself and other members of his family.

Fueled by his passion for musclecars, historic Trans- Am road racing and personal opinion that “they don’t make car movies like they used to”, Jay set out to write, direct, act in and produce his first feature film- CLUTCH.